I should elaborate on the title of my latest offering for the wonderful ‘nest. It comes initially from one of two wonderful, and terrifyingly accurate nicknames my three and a half year old daughter bestowed upon me…girlyboy. So, this week I would like to iron out any misconceptions about yoga for men.

Last week, I was lying with her as she threatened sleep for the umpteenth time. Granted, it had been a while since I had a haircut, so my locks were verging on foppish at very least. Moreover, I have a fairly solid beard at the mo; granted, not one of the remarkable fashion lumberjack units which is de rigeur at the moment but not a million miles away. As I gazed lovingly at Tallulah, she fired off the following in rapid succession- Beardygirl and Girlyboy. Both, it seems, have stuck, at least in the short-term.

The title also serves to illustrate what seems to be something of a misconception about yoga; certainly the notion that it is somehow effete, or unmanly to embrace it. However, in relatively recent weeks that it exactly what I have done. To an almost annoying, evangelical level (the almost in the prior sentence may well be superfluous if you ask my wife).

Just over a year ago as my fortieth birthday loomed I asked on social media for experiences and recommendations, and was charmingly inundated with well-informed, enormously helpful thoughts and recommendations of kinds of yoga, venues and experiences. What was abundantly clear as well was that all, or close to all, came from female friends. As is my wont, I waited a year or so before asking the question again, and managed my first class while I was (just) still forty.

Strikingly, the experience in asking was largely the same; with a couple of notable and extremely helpful suggestions, intriguingly I received messages and texts in private from male friends asking me to let them know how I got on (which was markedly lacking when I wrote here about getting a facial, despite how enjoyable an experience). there is, it seems, an untapped group of men keen to try yoga, but still unsure of simply going to a class and trying it. I can empathise.

I write this having tried the yogic equivalent of a toe in the shallow end of the water; yesterday was my first different class of any kind from my regular beginners Vinyasa twice a week, and even that was ostensibly a variation on a theme, albeit another journey further from comfort zone into a life-affirming experience.

Put simply, it has been something of a revelation; the experience following my first class bordered on the absurd, and I wandered through the Meadows in Edinburgh grinning like a loon. Since then, it has been an unremittingly positive addition to my days, and weeks, which I look forward to an enormous amount. The ability to be in a space where you are entirely removed from contemplating emails, meetings, illnesses and absurdity while exercising- unifying mind and body- is remarkable.

Despite my risible lack of experience, I do (annoyingly again) feel eminently able to wax lyrical about the benefits of yoga, and how much I am looking forward to developing over the coming weeks, months and years. This, I am convinced, is not a mid-life crisis; rather it is a remarkable tool to further well-being and awareness with which all of us can become equipped with remarkable ease.

The gym has long been a constant numerous times a week for me; in part borne of necessity with encroaching years, in part due to vanity and in part because of the love of structure and endorphins to counter my skills of procrastination and indolence.

A friend stated that once I started yoga I would no longer crave the dull hum of the gym. While this is overstating the case at the moment and I look to incorporate both together, there is no doubt that my preference at least part of the time is the yoga studio, and the mat for my crudely home executed asanas daily.

Crucially, that doesn’t matter. Yoga removes the necessity of imagined competition, save for with oneself. Paradoxically, in the getting better one needs not to try to get better, at least in the clichéd, idiotic way men (me) are inclined to.

This brings the point of the title, and in part the piece; that it’s not manly to do yoga. Which, of course, is akin to saying it’s not manly to do something which makes you healthier and happier than you currently are. Moreover, something that will continue to do so, arguably with increasing potency, for the rest of your life.

That is the problem- we are idiots. That we choose not to embrace the obviously beneficial for discomfort and pointless, posturing stoicism. In parts as well, I am by descent both a Scottish and Irish man. The idea of an undertaking which can have such positive benefits, and particularly a style of yoga so intrinsically healthy, revitalising and with profound detox properties may be at odds for a race of men who have spent so much time and money perfecting the tox, and if necessary retox parts of the process.

I can also state that thus far, at least, I feel no compulsion to rock hemp jumpers, karate pants and sandals with walking socks; that said you may well not feel compelled to ask me for style advice as is.

While there are of course numerous wonderful places globally for yoga, I have thus far been humoured and encouraged by the lovely team at Meadowlarkshop.com.

This may not suit you. Indeed, I temper my wish that I had started years (or indeed decades) ago with the notion that if I had, and not taken to it, I may not have gone back.

However, the need for balance and mindfulness daily presses on us, and by implication our families. That can come from the simplest things, like not checking emails and social media on the phone you have used as alarm clock the second you awake.

I would echo the advice on the window the wonderful, welcoming community which I have found in the yoga studio I go to; not to wait for the turn of the year, Monday or any other time to start. Idiot man such as I or not, it has to worth a try at least to be happier, healthier and more fulfilled. Namaste